Missing by Susan Lewis Read Free Book Online Page B

might be interesting to get an idea of what she knows about her ex-lover’s wife.’
    ‘If he is an ex.’
    Joy turned to look at him.
    ‘If the relationship was serious enough to cause Mrs Avery to stage a suicide and murder attempt,’ he said, ‘then we need to look into it. We also need to find out what reports were written up at the time of the incident with the daughter, because something must have been. Do we know how long the Averys have been married?’
    Without consulting her notes, Joy said, ‘Seventeen years.’
    ‘So if he’s forty-five now, that would make him twenty-eight when he got hitched and her …?’
    ‘Twenty-three.’
    ‘And the delightful Kelsey came along three years later, give or take.’ He slowed up behind a straw-bundled tractor and began tapping his fingers on the wheel. ‘Give me your first hunch on this, Detective Constable,’ he said after a while. ‘Are we going to see Mrs Avery again, or aren’t we?’
    Knowing how Sadler liked hunches Joy sat with the question, trying to get a feel for what she was thinking. In the end all she said was, ‘I don’t know, sir. I really don’t know.’
    After showing the police out and going to check that Mrs Davies hadn’t been unduly upset by their visit, Miles returned to the sitting room to find Kelsey slumped in one of the armchairs, staring into the fire.
    ‘So what happens now?’ she asked, as he flopped down on the sofa the detectives had vacated.
    ‘I’m not sure,’ he answered, looking and sounding extremely tired. ‘I didn’t ask.’
    There was a paleness around her mouth as she said, ‘I reckon you should have told them everything.’
    With a short sigh he began to massage his brow. ‘They’ll find out on their own,’ he said.
    Her eyes were clouded with misgiving as she sat watching him, but with his head back he wasn’t able to see her expression. ‘What about the row you had with Mum the night before she left?’ she asked.
    His hand stopped. ‘What row?’
    ‘She told me about it.’
    Lifting his head, he looked at her closely. ‘So you have seen her – or at least spoken to her?’ he said.
    She shrugged. ‘Not since that night. I called to find out who was picking me up from school and she told me she’d have to call back because you were in the middle of a row.’
    His face was starting to darken. ‘Why have you never mentioned this before?’ he asked.
    She coloured slightly. ‘I don’t really know. I mean … So how come you didn’t tell the police?’
    ‘Because there was no row,’ he answered. ‘We had a discussion which led to her starting again about Vivienne, so I went to bed. We even slept in separate rooms.’
    ‘So nothing new there,’ Kelsey said acidly.
    Sighing, Miles let his head fall back again and stared up at the ceiling.
    After a while Kelsey went to sit with him. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, moving into the circle of his arm.
    ‘It’s OK,’ he said, stroking her hair.
    ‘It’s going to get into the papers, about Mum, isn’t it?’
    ‘I expect so.’ He sighed again, knowing how eager his enemies would be to make a circus out of this.
    Reaching for his hand, she wound her fingers around his. ‘You don’t like the police, do you?’ she said. ‘I could tell. I think they could too.’
    ‘It’s not about liking. It’s about what happened in the past.’
    They sat quietly then, listening to the wind hurtling about the chimney, and feeling the presence of the police in the room as though their curiosity was lingering.
    In the end Kelsey said, ‘What are we going to do if she doesn’t turn up?’
    Without hesitation he said, ‘She will.’
    ‘But if she …’
    ‘She’ll be fine.’
    She lifted her head and waited for his eyes to come to hers. ‘Maybe we’d be better off without her,’ she said bleakly.
    ‘You know you don’t mean that.’
    She looked away, staring at nothing, until, in a voice he could barely hear, she said, ‘No, but you